Ward System Gives Voters Greater Voice

Felicia L. Mason

October 31, 1994|By FELICIA L. MASON Daily Press

Weighing the options of an expensive and protracted losing battle with the U.S. Justice Department, Newport News accepted a plan last week that would phase in a ward voting system for city council elections.

The plan calls for two council members from each of three wards. A seventh seat on the council would be a mayor elected at-large.

It's been a long time coming.

The reaction from council members was mixed, with some councilmen saying they resented the federal interference.

But without federal interference, many localities in this country would be without fair representation on school boards and on city and town councils. Without federal interference, public schools and colleges in some states would still be completely segregated.

With a lawsuit threatened from the Justice Department and one filed against the city by the American Civil Liberties Union, Newport News officials should have seen this train coming.

Fears that a ward system would polarize Newport News seem unjustified and unwarranted. Wards provide not only a greater opportunity for racial balance on the City Council, but also more direct accountability to voters in different parts of the city. That's not polarization, it's democracy - the closer to the voter, the better. The ward system in Newport News will favor not only the Southeast Community residents who will comprise a majority in the South District, but also residents in the Denbigh and northern areas of the city who will finally get some representation. Six of the seven current councilmen are from midtown.

Hampton, seeing the handwriting on the wall, is already investigating the possibility of ward elections. But Hampton, like Newport News did, is dragging its feet.

A citizen commission already established in Hampton has been pushing for a ward system. Mayor James Eason, in announcing a city-sanctioned task force to study the issue, said he hopes it will have its work completed in time for the May 1996 council election.

News flash to Hampton: With Virginia ACLU head Kent Willis saying just a few weeks ago that Hampton is a primary target for a voting rights suit, the city needs to dump the new task force and get on with doing the right thing. The Justice Department can't be far behind the ACLU.

Black citizens in Newport News represent about one-third of the city's population; in Hampton, they are 41 percent of the total.

The equation by which Justice determines if a voting system is unfair includes whether or not the black "candidate of choice," one who gets more than 50 percent of the black vote, is elected. In Newport News and in Hampton the answer to that is no.

Justice studied two decades of voting patterns in Newport News and came to the rightful conclusion that the city's at-large election system discriminates against black candidates. A recent and prime example is candidate Sherman Grant, who won the majority of votes in black precincts but still lost the May election.

Before Newport News yielded last week, Justice threatened to throw out the results of that election, booting all the current council members and starting over with a special election based on a ward system. That helped the city see the light.

After the city council election in May, Mayor Barry DuVal, who disapproves of the Justice Department's three-district plan, said it was "premature" to begin any discussion on wards for Newport News. Five months down the road, the city is being fed a plan that is overdue, not premature.